


of small death and

by piggy09



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Grim Reapers, I've just put them in the Author's Notes, Other, Purple Prose, Reapers, The amount of warnings for this is dizzying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:22:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2439983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Helena is death, and Sarah is only ever Sarah.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of small death and

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:**
> 
> **major character death, graphic depictions of violence, suicide, attempted suicide, terminal illness, abuse, self-harm, child death, drug use, overdose, gore, animal death, abortions, incest overtones**
> 
> The incest overtones here are kinda iffy, because Helena is 100% in love with Sarah but also her status as Sarah's sister is nebulous? Look, they don't kiss or anything, what else do you want from me.
> 
> Other notes:  
> Our narrator uses a variety of pronouns -- for simplicity's sake, "Sarah" is only referred to as "Sarah," not "she/her." So if you see "she/her," it is referring to our narrator.

She had wings once.

Maybe.

Wingsoncemaybe.

Now she: doesn’t, only has a vague remembering of what they could have been. w h i t e. f e a t h e r e d. s h i n i n g. The way they would catch the _light_ , when the light came through the cloudstuff or maybe the sea or when it filtered through cracks into the underground where it was home in the underground and they called it:

  *       Hades
  *       Izanami-no-Mikoto
  *       Nephthys
  *       Ogbunabali
  *       Death and they left it offerings on altars, prayed to it, _pleasenottoday_ , _takemyenemytakemyfriend pleasenottoday_ , flesh and blood, pastries and flowers, they held festivals for it in the dark and burned candles and
  *       Azrael
  *       Hine-nui-te-pō
  *       nowadays she goes by:



7.

The seventh time Sarah dies, Sarah is in a hospital. They are in a lot of different places, which is _part_ ofthejob, but _mostly_ they are at the end of Sarah’s bed, listening to the gurgle of blood in Sarah’s chest and loving each littlebit of that blood, each t i n y molecule that makes up Sarah’s blood that makes up Sarah, amen. They’re wearing Sarah’s face again, because it’s their favorite, but the rest of their body isn’t quite formed. They’re a shadow. They’re not even there.

“Who’s there,” says Sarah, croaks. There is blood in Sarah’s throat, and that makes it difficult for Sarah to talk – coughs instead, a low (death) rattle.

Startled, they _are_. Didn’t even mean to. They were with a girl named Helena, in Ukraine (which is their favorite), l o n grattlingbreaths in the basement of a convent looking at the _light_ -through-thewindow [two broken ribs] [a black eye] [cause of death: internal bleeding] [manner of death: homicide], and so they are trapped between Sarah and Helena and end up incongruous. Sarah’s browntangles meet Helena’s long-gold-curls, Sarah’s body under Helena’s torn-up skin; they think they have wings, maybe, and that doesn’t belong to Sarah or

“Who are you,” Sarah whispers,

  *       Helena



                         says Helena, and so she is.

“You look like me,” Sarah says, Sarah’s voice beautiful, Sarah’s death beautiful, the blood in Sarah’s lungs beautiful, Sarah never gets less beautiful.

“That’s because you’re beautiful,” says Helena, without even meaning to again _oops_. Truth. though. Helena loves Sarah for a lot of reasons but it is in part because Sarah is so beautiful. _So_ beautiful.

Sarah pauses. Sarah says, “Am I dead,” with a lowbruisedwounded sort of hope.

“No,” says Helena, like dying. “You have…” [eleven hours] [thirty minutes] [seven] [six] [five] “time.”

“Are you death,” says Sarah, who is now struggling to sit up in Sarah’s hospital bed; Helena, who is, feels the urge to shove Sarah back down but doesn’t want to touch Sarah, doesn’t want to send Sarah away too soon.

“I’m Helena,” says Helena (who is), and smiles, all teeth.

“Are you my _sister_ ,” Sarah says, “are you gonna” a-low-rough-harsh-cough “take me with you.”

* * *

She meets Sarah the second Sarah is born. She’s here for Sarah’s twin, who is dead upon exiting the womb. Sarah is not. Sarah looks at her, and blinks, and she loves Sarah the second she sees Sarah.

Then again, she loves e v e r y o n e. Usually she forgets about them. She loves them when they are born and she loves them when they are hers and she loves them when they are gone again, souls-singing-off-to wherever she is not.

(She had wings once.)

(Maybe.)

She remembers Sarah. **remembers** , even. She thinks about Sarah constantly, has to stop herself from being with Sarah, because she shouldn’t, because that’s not her place, with people, her place is everywhere, so mote it be. Still, she: watches Sarah play in the alley near Sarah’s house, watches Sarah shoot up like a sprout ( _like_ the opposite of everything that **she** _is_ ), watches Sarah grow and learn Sarah. She licks, furtively, at the blood on Sarah’s knuckles, because it is a dead thing and therefore: hers.

Sarah dies quickly. Sarah runs out into the road after a toy and is hit by a car, crash **bang**. Sarah’s body is a beautiful collection of angles (angels) (angel angles) (wingsoncemaybe) on the ground, and she loves it, and she loves Sarah, and she has seen so many bodies –

Jack the Ripper’s kills, all blood; suicides, stillborns, slit throats, no one mourns; oh arson, oh drowning, oh hurricanes and assassins and back-alley muggings

 – but this one might be her favorite. Which is sad, because: she _has_ Sarah until she _doesn’t_. and-then-she-feels

hollow.

But there is a child being born still across the world, so she goes.

Sarah’s twin is dead upon exiting the womb. Sarah is not. Sarah looks at her, and blinks, and she loves Sarah the second she sees Sarah

a

g

a

i

n

.

 

Some constants:

  *       When Sarah dies, Sarah is born.
  *       Sarah’s twin always dies.
  *       Sarah never lives past the age of thirty.
  *       They love Sarah _like_ slit throats, _like_ suicide, _like_ the-snap-crack-of-broken- _bones_. This love only grows, which is likely a problem – they shouldn’t have a bias, should _not_ have a bias, remember that they once had wings, remember that they no longer **do**.



After a while, they take Sarah’s twin’s face, wear it for their own. It’s not like they can show it to anyone – they’re busybusy, and no one ever sees them anyways, but they like knowing it’s there, where skin would be, where onceuponatime they had b o n e s.

And a scythe.

Those were nice times, but – – – – now they have Sarah.

Sometimes. Sometimes they _don’t_.

(Those are the worst times.)

A constant:

Sarah is a rebel. She doesn’t know what it’s like to rebel, she doesn’t, she _doesn’t_ , you can’t prove that she knows what it’s like to rebel because she didn’twouldn’tcouldn’t  
f  
a  
l  
l  
_becausethatwouldbeastupidthingtodoand_ Sarah graffitis, Sarah steals, one time when Sarah is fifteen (Sarah is fifteen [at least two] many times) Sarah kills a man and blood that is not Sarah’s drips from Sarah’s knuckles a n d she loves Sarah like breathing, which she’s heard about but has never had the chance to experience. Like that though probably that probably though that. Probably. Maybe. The rattling of oxygen _through_ your chest. But oh! no! that’s not the point. Sometimes she starts thinking about Sarah and ends up thinking about how much she _loves_ Sarah, which  is not the same thing at all. Sometimes she _reaches_ through everything that she **is** and finds something painful and holds it, in her hands, as punishment for being distracted.

(This time she’s chosen a suicide. Slit-your-wrists-open sort of pain. Moves it to her back. Wings? Wings? Wings? No.)

 **Anyways** Sarah rebels, which she knows nothing about; she loves Sarah for rebelling, wishes Sarah could teach her how.

Maybe she’s learning. Maybe she’s learning because she is pestilence, she is famine, she is war, but mostly she is sitting on the couch inhaling Sarah’s secondhand high. She doesn’t know which time this is [it is the] ( **she doesn’t know which time this is** ) but she knows Sarah is high and Sarah is beautiful and Sarah’s pupils are the size of galaxies and she wants to stick her tongue into them, see if she can taste void; she’s always wanted to know what it tastes like, the **after**. Instead she remembers  music and so she makes vocal cords like Zeus/God/every-creation-myth shapingfromtheclay and she hums a song that had been playing on a radio, once—

When it was crouching on the hood and when Sarah was in the driver’s seat, _air_ bagtoo-late, [broken neck] [skin of face lacerated by broken glass] [broken ribs] another beautiful cacophony of blood and bone, radio still tinnycrackling _you are my candy girl, and you’ve got me wanting you_ , and it was there when Ron Dante (born  **Carmine Granito**  on August 22, 1945, on [Staten Island](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staten_Island), [New York](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City)) is an [American](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) [singer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing), [songwriter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songwriter),[session vocalist](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_musician), and [record producer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_producer). Dante is best known as the lead singer for the fictional cartoon band, [The Archies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Archies),died, or will be there when he dies, one or the other, same-thing.

Now it is she and she hums the notes, high sad things that remind her of bones and also remind her of Sarah’s first kiss two – three – seven – deaths ago, the time when Sarah tried to rob an apartment and was killed for it, that time, that time that was, when Sarah was younger and kissing a girl outside of Sarah’s middle school.

Sarah’s lips touched the other girl’s lips and she looked up from a politician’s heart attack and b r e a t h e d, at the loveliness of it, and also around the **want** in her chest that crooned for life, that wanted life – she as a “person” has always wanted life, grabs for it but only gets embers, crumbs.

Or maybe that’s not true. She is **large** and **old** and her memory is all t-t-t-t-tangled. That’s not the  point! What she did then was

** stop! **

(…and _words_ are not enough to sum up the **s t o p !** p i n g, the abruptness of it, and how it **p u l l e d ** at her, all those final breaths, louder and louder, Sisyphus with his boulder and she was _there_ , she was the boulder and the god who gave it to him and too many final words were spilling out of mouths and the **stop!** ping was the most difficult thing she had ever done, like holding your breath if you are millions—)

and pull into herself, and totter one-two steps to the other side of the fence and _watch_ this thing, this sweetness of lips.

Death is a hungry _thing_ , by nature it is hungry, by the nurture of no nurture it is hungry, always reaching for what can never be held, always trying to touch what cannot be touched. Death – when Death was _she_ – watched Sarah’s first kiss, what was her first Sarah’s first kiss, and Death wanted like – living. Like that.

So. she. thinks about that, and hums, like: _you’ve got me wanting you._

“Thass pretty,” slurs Sarah, and she stops, abruptly, bones breaking everywhere glass shattering he-slits-her-throat-and-blood-spray-gets-all-over-him-why-did-he-oh-god-he-moves-the-glass-shard-towards-his-wrist no, no, is it time already? Is _that_ why she is _here?_

No _no_ no nonono, Sarah has [nine years] [two months] [thirteen days] [four hours] [ten minutes] [seventeen] [sixteen] [fifteen] time. So: why.

She doesn’t have time (get it) to consider before Sarah's head is in her

l

a

p

(oh)

smelling so strongly of a chemical high that she can almost imagine it, the being of the high. It’s not like she doesn’t know about LSD because oh she has held so many children who have tried, died, but it is a thing – like breathing – that she can never touch.

But. Sarah. Sarah is in. Sarah is. Sarah’s looking at her with widewide eyes; Sarah is reaching up to trail fingers along her face and she makes a _sound_ in the back of her throat that is the sound of someone who has never! been touched. Oh no not her she is not meant for this.

“Your face,” Sarah says solemnly, and pinches her cheeks, and moves the skin on them around, and she says “Stop” in a voice like a truck sliding on ice and plunging off the ravine, where she should be _now_ but _Sarah_ and Sarah says, “Your face is my face.”

“Are you me,” Sarah says, and she closes her eyes and says, “No, I am Helena.”

“Right,” says Sarah, “yeah. You should sing again. It’s like – bones.”

“It is,” Helena (who is) croaks, and she does. _Hm-hm-hm-hmmm-hmhmmm-hm-hmhmhm-hmhmhmmm_ , and Sarah laughs in her lap and says, “Holy shite, this is the _best_ bloody trip I’ve ever been on,” and Helena’s humming shatters again he’s-bleeding-out-on-the-ground with a surprised short laugh.

They laugh together. Oh no. Oh _no_ oh no. Helena is consumed by this: nine-years-two-months-thirteen-days-four-hours-nine. eight. seven. six.

* * *

It is _bad_ , bad bad bad bad, bad bad _bad_ bad bad bad, but it keeps being she and she keeps being Helena and Helena keeps going to Sarah, _going_ to Sarah. She keeps _being_ , and this is the only time Helena has been she has been it has _been_. Mostly it has skulked around the edges of things and accepted that as its due. It has eaten from its altar-plates. It has not listened to prayers. It has sucked meat from the bellies of rats, once the rats d i e, and it has devoured faith.

It has not donned god. skin. and _walked_ amongthepeople. Not ever. Not everever. Oh no.

Helena never touches Sarah, only sits and listens to Sarah breathe and feels a guillotine – sharp- _snick_ – of excitement whenever Sarah touches _her_ , when she is her and her is touched by Sarah. A little voice in the back of her head ticks in strange bursts, [seven years] [eight years] [two years] [forty minutes] [fifty-nine] [nine months] [eight] [seven] [six] and Helena thinks she’s _messingthingsup_ , _ruining_ things, but. butbutbut. Sometimes she curls into the space in _Sarah’s_ bed and Sarah rolls over in Sarah’s sleep and Sarah’s arm brushes against Helena’s skin that is Sarah’s skin and Helena has been dead for so many-many years so it’s barely Helena’s skin at all just Helena’s and doyouunderstand that Helena who is death has **never**

**been**

**touched?**

Doyou _understand_ do. you? Helena wants everything and she gets it, eventually, but _this_ this is _new_ and she sleeps in Sarah’s bed when Sarah’s bed has no one else in it and when it does have someone else in it who is-not-Sarah and is-not-Helena Helena watches, and puts her “fingers” to the “pulse” of them, listens to the voice that is the spine of Helena, the bones, the harsh solid things that hold her up, listens to that voice say [seventy-seven years] [eleven months] [twenty-two days] [one hour] [thirty-nine minutes] [fifty-six] [fifty-five] and feel a wordless **_howl_** of anger at the thought that these people, these men and boys and girls and other people who wear their skins like hurting, that _all_ these _people_ have _all_ this _time_ and S a r a h does _n o t_. She is Helena and Helena sleeps in Sarah’s bed and Helena dutifully takes life after life from inside Sarah after Sarah cries on the toilet seat holding-the-test-in-Sarah’s-hand and Helena takes the _babies’_ hands and walks away with them.

She likes babies. Babies are her favorite.

So is Ukraine, and sugar, and meat, and when people slit throats for her altars, which they don’t do anymore, not really, and American pop music from the six tea s, and that one color that human beings can’t see, and everyone she’s ever met, and _and_ and: and: and, **and:**

Sarah.

Sarah’s been alive for **years** and Helena sleeps in Sarah’s bed, and goes through Sarah’s closet, and breathes in Sarah’s smell, and sits across the table from Sarah whenSaraheatsatthetable, and drums her feet against the chair, and **watches**. And s- _ometimes_ Sarah gets high or drunk or Sarah doesn’t have enough sleep or Sarah is! _thisclose_!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to death and Helena can look at Sarah and Sarah can look at Helena and say _oh I know you_ and Helena’s chest can explode like a bomb, killing hundreds.

** B— **

“I know you,” Sarahsays, Sarah _slurs_ halfasleep a c-o-c-k-t-a-i-l of drugs in Sarah’s belly, Helena is sitting on the edge of Sarah’sboyfriend’s bed, b r e a t h i n g in the air and listening to Sarah’s heart. [three months] _lub-dub_ [one day] _lub-dub_ [nine hours] _lub-dub_ [one minute] _lub-dub_ [forty-seven] I [forty-six] know [forty-five] you.

Sarah tries _to_ sit up but the weight of ch emicals in Sarah’s body is too much, too much and the arm slung across Sarah’s chest too much casually. All over too much for Sarah to sit up, and say _hello hello I know you_.

“You’re my sister,” says Sarah. “Right? You died, but now you’re back.”

Helena opens her mouth, to say something, closes it.

“I keep thinking,” Sarah says dreamily, with the weight of truth and [three months] [one day] [eight hours] [fifty-nine minutes] [fifty] death, “that if I get high enough, I’ll be able to see you again.”

Sarah sighs out the dust at the bottom of cereal boxes (sugar) (Helena’s favorite) and says, “I’m sorry” with a voice that cracks and warbles. “You should be alive, not me, I don’t deserve any of this. Shit.”

“You do,” says Helena, with strained urgency, because she’s seen Sarah rescue cats from trees and walk a lost child all the way home and shove someone out of the way of a bullet and mostly she has seen Sarah smile, and laugh, and deserve it. This. This living. She **stands** up from the edge of the bed, listens to Sarah’sboyfriend b r e a t h e, and crouches in front of Sarah’s face, so that Helena’s eyes are reflected in Sarah’s eyes are reflected in Helena’s eyes are reflected in Sarah’s “You do,” she says again. “Sarah, you deserve to be alive.”

Sarah begins to cry, low heavy sobs, and Helena grows pockets to stick her fists in. _In_ the pockets her fists, not touching, not the tears Sarah’s face the touching. Just this. She just. watches.

“I keep saying I won’t,” Sarah says through tears as thick as, trying to breathe, “get high, yeah? I keep sayin’ _no, not this time_ , but—”

Sarah locks eyes with Helena for one **_beautiful_** second. “You’re the only one who says shit like that,” Sarah breathes. “You’re the only one who says I’m good enough like I am, and I made you _up_ , and—”

“Can you sing again,” Sarah says, and Helena listens to Sarah’sboyfriend groan-and-roll-over in his sleep and “holds her breath,” hoping he doesn’t wake _hoping_ he doesn’t wake.

Sarah hasn’t noticed. “I like it,” Sarah says, closing Sarah’s eyes and breathing a sleepytearymurmur, “when you sing.”

A long time ago there might have been a garden, and Helena might have sat at the edge of it when _she_ was it and it might have listened to a woman sing, picking the _fruits_ but-not-the-apples.

She sings it. It is a high thing with no words, because then it did not need them. It tastes, on Helena’s tongue, like Sarah’s tears.

** –oom. **

 

spilling out of Sarah’s stomach like some sort of lifeline, glistening and pink, and Helena (who still, still is) wants to trail her fingers through them. Instead she crouches next to Sarah and watch Sarah whine and buck and bleed.

Sex and dying are very similar. Helena thinks.

“Hel” _ena_ , Sarah says, and Helena can taste those last two syllables in the air, knows it’s almost time. She lets her weight thud down so she is cross-legged, and curls her hands together, and watches a n d curls her hands together, and loves.

[forty-nine] [forty-eight] [forty-seven] _Yes_ , Helena “says” back.

 _Stay,_ Sarah “says.” _I don’t_ “want” _to be a_ “lone.”

 _Always_ , “says” Helena, and means it.

 _Is it nice, on the_ “other side,” Sarah says.

 _I don’t know,_ Helena “says” back. _I’ve never been_.

 _Let’s go together_ , Sarah says, convulses, _yeah?_

[twenty-five] [twenty-four]

 _I don’t know the way,_ Helena says, and if Helena was a person and not Helena Helena would cry, maybe, but she’s not so she isn’t so she doesn’t so she won’t.

She doesn’t say _You don’t either_ but she’s thinking it, with a spark of joy like a gas explosion.

She watches Sarah’s fingers twitch, watches Sarah’s fingers twitch towards Helena’s hand, but Helena does not move Helena’s hand towards Sarah’s fingers.

She’s not allowed. [seven] six. She can’t touch. It’s a **rule**. five. (She wants to.)

four.

three.

(She’s starting to forget

two.

why she shouldn’t.)

o n e—

Sarah’s twin is dead upon exiting the womb. Sarah is not. Sarah looks at her, and blinks, and she loves Sarah the second she sees Sarah.

And she **k e e p s** loving _all_ the seconds, every minute, collects hours like a bouquet like Ophelia in the water she was there she was the water and her fingers ache to twist them into a flower crown and nestle it in Sarah’s hair, that tangled mane, she wants to run her fingers through it.

Sarah is six years old and Sarah’s tooth has fallen out; Helena took it, Helena put it in her mouth but it didn’t fit, Helena is **angry** , Helena is **hungry** , Sarah’s tooth has fallen out and Sarah’s smile is gap ped, Sarah sits in the latest foster home and drums Sarah’s feet against the bed bang _bang_ bang babang **bang** like Helena does. Like that and Helena is so angry and Sarah’s hand is so tiny and Helena wants to stick it in her _mouth_ and instead she turns her back on Sarah and goes to a desert, is met by the sting of sand and machine-gun bullets.

For a while she is war. This helps.

Sarah is eight when Helena comes back, Sarah’s teeth all in Sarah’s mouth, and Helena passes a few entertaining seconds finding Sarah’s old baby teeth and eating them.

They melt like sugar in her mouth, she is hungry.

Sarah is eight and Sarah is adopted by a woman who reminds Helena, a little bit, of being war. Her hair is like old blood. There is a boy and Helena does notlike _him_ , so when he sleeps she sits next to Sarah and whispers [eighteen years] [two months] [nine days] [four hours] [thirteen minutes] [ten] [nine] [eight] Sarah wakes up in the dark, gasps, and Helena stops whispering, listens to Sarah’s sad-scared little breaths, watches Sarah’s eyes wideinthedark, and Helena’s heart is a soldier falling, Helena’s heart is blood in the sand.

Sarah shouldn’t be able to hear her.

( _Oh. **no**_.)

 _Was_ stupid of Helena to leavemaybe, because now Sarah is too old for an imaginary friend. Maybe next time! Maybe next time Helena will be with Sarah _always_.

(Should there be a next time what about this time why is Sarah never allowed to get old why _why_ why whwhy **why** why why)

Sarah is eight and Helena folds herself into Sarah’s shadow and so is with Sarah always. The population spikes and soars in graphs and charts, people die toofast or too- _late_ but if someone if _someone_ if! someone! _cared_ aboutthis then they s hould tellHelena so they should c o me  t o Helena and say Helena you are doing _wr_ ong Hel _e_ na _you **are**_ doing wrong Helena Helena Helena Helena Helena Helena She just wAnts. someone. to tell heR she is doing the right thing or the wrong one she doesn’t cAre sHe just _wants_ and she doesn’t _know_ if she had **_wings_** is that the – answer – you are lookingfor she ? doesn’t знаю Our Father, Who art in Heaven, **hollow** be Thy name; Thy Kingdom Our Father come, Thy will Who art be done on earth if you would just _ask_ as it is in Heaven maybe, wings maybe once maybe wings _maybe once **maybe wings maybe once maybe G i v e**_ us this day our daily bread; and forgive us Sarah please forgive us we are lonely we are she and she is lonely it is she and everything is she, eventually, and Sarah did you have to put your head into her lap oh Sarah do you forgive those who trespass against us? do you?

lead us not into temptation,

lead us not into temptation,

lead us not into temptation,

lead us not into temptation,

lead us not into temptation,

lead us not into temptation,

lead us not into temptation,

 

 

привести

 us not into temptation,

lead введи temptation not us lead привести lead привести us _into_ temptation lead **us** tempt введи lead and tempt us lead спокуса temptation lead

us us us us us введи us us us us us us us us  lead

us not into temptation,

lead us not into temptation,

lead us

НЕ

temptation _lied_

not! НЕ is a [chemical element](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element) in the [carbon group](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_group) with symbol  **Pb**  (from [Latin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_language):  _plumbum_ ) and [atomic number](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_number) 82 eight-two, in-two

(oh temptation)

привести us not into спокуса,

lead us not into temptation,

on Sarah’s eleventh birthday party Helena reaches out and touches one of Sarah’s candles the second Sarah blows it out and the fire is burned, and Helena who is is not,

lead us not into temptation,

sugar,

lead us not into temptation,

oh honey honey,

lead us not into temptation,

Sarah’s first kiss is with a boy in an alley that smells like the [forty-three] many murders that have happened there and Helena digs her hands into the grass and it shrivels and dies,

не введи нас у спокусу,

oh she is tempted,

lead us not into temptation,

**honey honey honey honey honey honey,**

lead us not into temptation,

**you are _my,_**

lead us not into temptation,

 _Sarah_ ,

lead us not into temptation, Sarah,

when Sarah is fourteen Sarah’sboyfriend hits Sarah,

lead us not into temptation,

over and over,

lead us not into temptation,

and Helena,

lead us not into temptation,

[two minutes] [three] [two] [one]

lead us not into temptation,

Helena,

lead us not into temptation,

 _Helena_ ,

lead us not into temptation,

**_Helena_ **

lead us not into temptation,

has r e a l i z e d

lead us not into temptation,

that **no one**

lead us not into temptation,

is

lead us not into temptation,

**l i s t e n i n g .**

but

Helena

deliver

watches Sarah’s blood

us

drip

from

and says:

evil.

** NO. **

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He could be dead but he is _not_ because Helena **has** an idea of whatsheis _doing_ thank-you-verymuch. Instead he is just fall. ing. Fall ing he is on the floor and Helena looks at Sarah and thinks you are everything I have, thinks you are the best thing I have, thinks _I love you_ with all the weight of a fist to the face but Sarah can’t hear her _because_ Sarahisbleeding. Sarah is on the ground! and Helena sits next to Sarah, says: Sarah do you know what I have just done for you. Sarah do you forgive those. their daily bread Sarah. Sarah is crying. Sarah is [broken ribs] [slight bleeding] [concussion] [tears] [     ] [     ] [     ] [one year] [nine hours] [eleven minutes] [three] [two] hurt. Sarah do you know what I have just done for you. Sarah I am afraid. Sarah I wish you were closer to me, so I could make you forgive me. Sarah no one has ever forgiven me _Sarah_ I would do it _again_ Sarah _Sarah_ Sarah.

One year. One glorious year, nine awe-inspiring hours, ten priceless minutes, thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight

* * *

“Do you ever think you have a guardian angel,” Sarah asks, when Sarah is twenty-two and not the victim of a car accident, not poisoned from Sarah’s food, the miraculous (m _ir_ acles) survivor of a house fire, no heart attack, no teen-age-o-ver-dose, no choking, no drowning, no slip-falling; Sarah’s gotten an ear pierced recently and Helena’s hands still sting from the infection that she picked up and settled, gently, in another woman’s ear.

Her head hurts all the time. Sarah is beautiful. so. her. head hurts _all_ the time but—

One year. The scales are almost even. Three months. If they are a _littlebit_ off no one would notice. Nine days. Twelve hours. Helena is sitting at the table-next-to SarahandFelix [nine years] [a month] [two hours] [five minutes] [eleven] five [ten] four [nine] three if she s w a y s closeenough she can inhale Sarah’s “buzz,” flickhertongueout to taste the mouth of Sarah’s bottle. Hello. Do you ever think you have a guardian angel? You do. Hello.

“You don’t believe that bollocks, do you,” says Felix, sipping at his own drink eyebrows-raised.

“I don’t _know_ ,” Sarah sighs, running a hand through Sarah’s hair, “just a thought, Fee. Humor me, yeah?”

Felix sighs, rolls eyes. “Are you alluding to your _miraculous_ escape from death” notescapefrom _death_ “on several occasions, because yes, that is increasingly looking to be the work of some higher power.”

“Someone _up there’s_ got the hots for _you_ ,” he croons, then laughs into his drink at how s _tu_ pid he finds the whole thing and Helena Helena Helena

(someone _up there’s_ got the hots for _y o u_ )

f eels her heartlurch like a thing-that-is-dead t r y i n g to not be a thing, trying to be thing that is not, not dead, trying to. live. l i v e. l. i. v. e. m aybe. It is warm. It is all very warm, hot even. Someone up there. Someone down _here_ go down and down it is all very hot for _you_ and Sarah laughs, says, “Piss off,” and Helena can feel the way the air breaks, like a neck, like a body crashing through glass, and now it is only a joke, maybe was only ever a joke, ha h aha ha aahhahaha ah aha haa h h ah ha h ha ha aha h aa ah a aha hah aha haha.

The air breaks like dreams do and Sarah takes a sip from Sarah’s beer and it is a joke. Yes? Yes? Yes? No.

* * *

In this lifetime Sarah does not get high as much, and now Helena is afraid, Helena is afraid of pushingSarah _closer_ , t o the edge, until Sarah is gone again. Maybe Helena is sick of Sarah being gone. Maybe Helena is sick of Sarah falling againandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainan(don’t(go)d)againandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagain, w h o knows. Whatever the reason Helena does not! touch still does not leave Sarah though. She’s learning what crying is and it is very! exciting!, one year later Sarah’s hair is _caught_ in the garbage disposal but the power turns off in time and the fingerprints on the garbage disposal switch contain the names of every person who has ever been and your own time of death, if you look for it, and Helena falls (again) (again?) (againandagainandagainandagainan) to the ground and **cries** , at how much she **hurts** , Sarah hold me, Sarah do you forgive me, please forgive me, Sarah slices an inch off Sarah’s hair with a knife and slidestotheground _right_ next to Helena and says _Thank god_ and Helena thinks _no_ with a screech like tires trying to avoid a crash. How un fair, this.

Helena’s tears fall (don’t go) to the ground in a way that is familiar to her, maybe too familiar. In manymany years when this kitchen is growing mold-and flowers-and the planet _re_ takes back what is its own nothing will grow where her tears fell, nothing at all, and that is all the planet will have of Sarah. That’s it. That’s it.

It’s the closest Helenawillget to making a grave. When she hurt moreless she used to go-and-visit Sarah’s, Sarah’s graves, and rub her fingers over the name _Sarah_ and watch the name _Sarah_ wear down, because all stone erodes and all things die.

Now she never leaves Sarah, not ever, and so. The stone is fine. Helena’s head hurts like a firing squad but that’s fine, the stone is fine, death wonders if it can die, the stone is fine, the stone is fine, the stone is fine, Sarah.

Maybe someone else would try **testing it** sooner but: this is Sarah, but: Sarah wouldn’t believe Sarah deserved it, but: Sarah would rather assume co-in-ci-dence than someone looking out for Sarah, ever Sarah, but: Sarah doesn’t believe Sarah worthy of this, Helena knows from the image of Sarah’s eyes still imprinted on Helena’s eyelids, _I don’t deserve any of this Shit_.

It takes Sarah _years_ , and then Sarah gets a gun, and Sarah breathes out, and Sarah loads one (1) bullet into the gun, and Sarah says “Sorry,” and Sarah puts the gun against her head—

_Click._

Breathe.

_Click._

Breathe.

(In.)

(Out.)

Helena sits, and licks her lips, and watches beads of sweat trail down Sarah’s neck, and watches tears trail down Sarah’s face, and thirsts, and hungers.

(In.)

 

 

(Out In.)

(Out.)

Breathe.

Sob.

_ClickClick._

Sob.

Breathe.

Sob. Helena sits, and watches beads of sweat trail down Sarah’s neck, and watches tears waterfall down Sarah’s face, and thirsts, and hungers.

Sob.

Thirst.

Sob.

Hunger.

 _Click_.

Sarah puts the gun down and begins to cry in a way like release, like giving up, bowed shoulders, dropping a heavy weight.

Weep.

Keep breathing:

In. Out. In. Out.

Helena sits, and rolls the bullet she’s stolen between her fingers, and watches beads of sweat trail down Sarah’s neck, and watches tears fall (god) down Sarah’s face. And thirsts. And hungers. 

And—

A list of lives:

  *       [Abusive boyfriend]
  *       [Car accident]
  *       [Food poisoning]
  *       thirsthungerthirsthunger
  *       [House fire]
  *       **thirsthungerthirsthunger**
  *       [Overdose]
  *       [Choking]
  *       Helena has never touched a-ny-one until she _did_ and now it has been **years** and she misses Sarah, misses Sarah, misses Sarah,
  *       [Drowning]
  *       [Fall
  *       misses Sarah,
  *       down a flight of stairs]
  *       and she won’t let Sarah die. She won’t she _won’t_ better Sarahlives and Sarahdoesn’ttouch than watching Sarah bleed again because what! if! Sarah does-not come back next time, what if there isn’t a next time, she can’t try again, but she
  *       [Ear piercing infection]
  *       [Mugging gone wrong]
  *       misses Sarah, misses touching Sarah, misses Sarah saying “I know you” with Sarah’s voice all rusty and creaking like
  *       [A collapsed building]



 

  *       [Attempted suicide



For the first time Sarah will turn 31 today Sarah will turn thirty-one bells chime today and that is: three one years old. [two minutes] [ten] [nine] Helena is standing on the train platform and watching Sarah, who is crying, who is Sarah crying, and Helena considers trains, considers how easily they can stop moving, considers miracles. Watches Sarah pace back-and-forth, and sits on top of the telephone-box!, and drums her feet against the buttons. No matter where her feet land the phone beeps 9-1-1-9-1-1-9-1-1 but she has _no_ money, so she is _alright_. Back-and-forth-and-back-

  *       ]
  *       [Attempted suicide



and it’s the third job in a month Sarah’s been fired from, _Put down the drinks sister dear_ s i g h s Felix, Helena agrees, sometimes Sarah’s eyes twitch to Helena and Helena thinks: oh no not yet I love you p l e a s e—

She is thinking this: she is. thinking. She is thinking _that_ when Sarah turns! t h i r t y o n e it will be alright and Helena will say: surprise! happy birthday I love you happy birthday hello surprise! I love you. Because then: the rules are _br_ oken, the rules are gone to ash and to dust you shall return bye bye surprise! you don’t have to die! you will never die because surprise! I love you surprise! I love you surprise! I love you are thirty-one years old and I love you surprise!

But until then Helena wants to ruin _nothing_ , keeps cupping Sarah in her hands like water ex-cept Helena’s hands fit together **perfectly** and nothing leaks out _nothing_ leaks out Helena hurts so so so so so so bad nothing leaks out Sarah is fine in her hands like water. Like drinks that spill from the gaps _in_ Sarah’steeth, Sarah is crying, Sarah is breaking glass, Sarah is falling (falling) (once) (maybe) into the arms of old boyfriends, (Helena is not crying is not crying is not crying) Sarah says: I’m a wrecking ball: why am I alive: Sarah find _Vic_ -tor says: You. Owe. Me.

Sarah locks Sarah in the bathroom and sits on the ground with a bottle of pills and Helena sits next to Sarah and plucks each one out of Sarah’s fingers and eats it. They are the farthest thing from candy Helena has ever known, but part of Helena wants more, wants to eat everything, wants to **consume**. Instead Helena sits next to Sarah and tells Sarah about all the flavors of M &M’s there are – Sarah sits and waits to die and probably wonders why Sarah is thinking about M&M’s but that is because Sarah can hear Helena, if Sarah concentrates, so. coconut and birthday cake and peanut butter and plain and mint and peanut

and-forth Sarah goes, like a pendulum, Helena loves Sarah, loves Sarah, like a pendulum except both sides are hurting and so is the middle, the whole swing of the thing is hurting. Yes? Death see should not stop death. Death is death and death is not stopping death and holding back Sarah’s death makes Helena’s “bones” ache like – like – Helena doesn’t

  *       ]
  *       [Attempted suicide



Another abortion.

Bathroom.

Razor blade.

**NO.**

**know**. What it hurts like. Only that it does. She wishes she could ask Sarah! Then again she wishes a **_lot_** -of-things so instead of horses that beggars could ride she shifts her weight on the telephone-box and rests her head on her arms and prods the back of her mouth with her tongue, licks at her teeth, tastes, [one minute] [nine] [eight] wonders what it’ll be this time. Slip-fall again? Boom-gun again? One minute is _n-o-t_ a long time! It’ll have to be sharpquickfast. She wonders. Rests her head in her hands.

c

  *       ]



o

  *       [Attempted suicide]



n

  *       [Attempted suicide]



siders. She could do this for years, probably! _Decades_ even. She could watch Sarah pace back and forth for [ty-six] [forty-five]

Sarah

 **stops**. _Checks_ Sarah’s  watch. _Opens_ Sarah’s  mouth, says:

“I know you’re there.”

A human being couldn’t tell that Sarah’s voice was shaking! _Helena_ can, Helena can taste it on her tongue, Helena wonders who Sarah’s talking to.

“I know you’re _there_ ,” Sarah says again, and Sarah’s looking around like Sarah’s looking for someone oh _oh_ oh no someone Sarah is for looking oh someone oh looking someone for oh no. no.

“You’ve been lookin’ after me all this time, right?” Sarah says _soft_ oh no oh no Helena feels a hook between her “ribs” that pulls like something she doesn’t know, she is

_falling_

(and something in her mewls, pleads, please help me I am hurting and kitten-weak oh Sarah oh Sarah oh no)

off her perch, where she was, high above but oh lacking wings, and she is stumbling towards Sarah who is saying “I just want to talk.”

 _Hello_ drops from Helena’s mouth like an

  *       [Attempted suicide]



, and she _is_ they _are_ it _is_ Helena _is_ , and Helena looks at Sarah, and Helena notices again that they are the same height.

Sarah takes a step backwards, face rippling in what Helena (wants to taste with the tip of her tongue) thinks is: shock-fear-horror-anger-love-disappointment-hurt-fear-shock.

“Why do you look like me,” Sarah says, voice rattling, and Helena rolls her shoulders, sucks lips between teeth, considers saying _Because_ , decides that this is not working and **twists** the world, says “Because” instead.

Around the two of them time slows. The world belongs to Helena – the dust that is dead skin, the train station that is dead plastic, metal, dead di-no-saurs, the carbon dioxide, Sarah. Everything is Helena’s. Why do you look like me? Because. Because I love you.

With the world like-this, each second hits Helena like a stab wound. [thirty-five]

“Right,” says Sarah, and then again, “Right. Because.” There is something in Sarah’s voice that says Sarah is trying to make sense of this, and failing; Helena does not blame Sarah, for that. Helena doesn’t understand a lot of things, like breathing, and the color of Sarah’s eyes, and putting salt in desserts, and _why_.

Sarah closes Sarah’s eyes, breathes, says, “Are you what’s been stopping me from dying,” says it like the answer’s already there present, says it without a question mark, solid as a **rock** , solid as **weight**.

“Yes,” Helena says, and now it is Helena’s voice that’s shaking, trembling at the seams with how much it hurts and how much she wants Sarah to love her, for denying her n a t u r e, for being the opposite of what she _is_ and all for Sarah oh Sarah oh Sarah oh.

“Why,” says Sarah, like a wounded thing, and then Sarah pauses, mutters – Sarah’s eyes are still closed, thirty-four –  “Because.”

“Yes,” says Helena, who has forgotten how to speak. Thirty years since she has. She wants Sarah to ask her to sing. She wants to sing, because words do not – right. Not like that. “You–” she tries, makes a sound like an animal hit by a car, a high scream of pain, tries again: “I didn’t–” Again. “You shouldn’t–” **_Again_** , Helena. “You cannot. die. No.”

Sarah makes the end of the same sound, the same animal, and begins to cry; shaking Sarah’s head from side to side, Sarah says, “You can’t keep _doing_ this, okay?”

“I _can_ ,” Helena says, takes a step forward, her hands ripple at her sides, her hands want to touch, _can’t_ touch _can’t_ touch, “I will, _Sarah_ ,” she says, _Sarah_. Says it again, for the joy of it. “Sarah. You can’t die.”

“You have to stop,” Sarah says, looking Helena in the eyes, and Helena’s hands twitch, reach, Helena’s hands make fists and arc towards her face like bullets and Helena keens, a high warbling moan, says, [thirty-three].

“What?” Sarah says, and Sarah is crouching on the ground now, next to Helena who has **fallen**.

“Thirty-three times,” Helena says, like hurting. “You were hit by a car. You were shot.”

“You got sick,” she says, looking at Sarah, shaking, “you overdosed, your car crashed, you were poisoned, you were shot _again_ , you got sick _again_ ,” and she can’t stop, a litany of Sarahs like rosary beads between her fingers, “stabbed in the eye, stabbed in the neck, burned in a fire, shot _again_ , stabbed in the _stomach_ …” and then she can’t keep going, because she’s remembered what crying looks and feels and sounds like, which is: terrible.

“Oh,” says Sarah, but Helena can barely hear Sarah because it has been so many years and Helena is so tired and it is _so_ wrong that Helena is crying, and here, and not anywhere else, _oh_. 

She is so much that Sarah’s arms around her barely even register – but there they are, and Helena falls into them, like: like: like: like: like! like! falling. Her chin is far away from Sarah’s shoulder, and her tears do not touch Sarah’s skin, and Sarah’s skin does not touch Helena’s skin, she is warm, Sarah is warm, is Sarah she or is she “It’s okay,” Sarah says, “I know that must’ve been hard for you, yeah? So hard.”

Helena can’t breathe through the feeling of Sarah’s hand rubbing circles against her back. For a second she almost forgets about wings. She should answer; instead she says the terrified final sound of a woman stabbed to death during a burglary gone wrong. Tries to say _you can’t die_ again, can’t get it past her traitorlips, her deadboneteeth.

“But you have to let me go, okay?” Sarah says, thirty. two. Leans back. Looks at Helena. th _ir_ tytwo, Sarah brushes Helena’s hair out of her eyes, says, “You have to let me go.”

Helena tries to say _You’ll just come back_ , tries to say _You’re so close to thirty-one_ , tries to say _Sarah_ , just makes a sound. The sound twists and Helena says “ ** _NO_**.”

But Sarah’s unfolding arms and Sarah is standing and Helena says “No” again angry, hurting, no, no no no no no, Sarah turns to look towards the tracks, takes a step, and all of Helena’s bones are the word _no_ and she reaches out and grabs Sarah’s wrist.

 

Thirty-one.

 

* * *

She had wings once.

Maybe.

Wingsoncemaybe.

And behold – behold – please, this story is a murmur, this story is low words that fit in the mouth, this story is plump worms after a rain and it is told by a mouth that struggles to stay closed and eyes that _do_ not meet yours. It is a soft story, in a soft voice, and if you touch it it will collapse. so. Behold, those wings? they were very good.

No. No, they were beautiful wings. bright as a morning star.

…

It is a difficult story to tell. Give it time.

They were beautiful wings, like a bell ringing. They fit on her back like an embrace, back before she even _knew_ she, back when she was it and the word _joy_ was too big to be contained in words, even радість.

So – oh. oh. No, those tears are part of the story too. It’s alright. They won’t interrupt, much. So it flew and it sang, in a voice like blonde hair and the light through stained-glass windows and concepts too big for the human mind. It sang like its wings, and it flew like its song.

How did it learn of love? Oh, nobody knows. Maybe it could tell you, if you sway close enough, if you say _tell me a story_.

But not now. Put down the gun. The story isn’t **over.**

It learned of love, and it **flew** to the **others** , and it said _Can you love me like people do_.

But don’t you know that being human is a sin? Don’t you know that reaching for something you can’t have, can’t touch – you _must_ know, you _must_ , it will hurt everyone, hurt them beyond the point they could stand.

So the they that was it and it and them and it but mostly them said No. And it spread its wings and kept flying, higher and higher and higher, towards the sun, towards that bright light that makes everything grow. every little thing in all the world, because it is kind, yes? It is a kind thing, the sun, and it loves everything on its great earth, and it thought if anyone would be able to love it—

So it flew.

But then it.

Forgot how.

Flying and falling are the same thing, aren’t they? It’s just a few little letters, and then you hit the ground and you are barren, you are lost.

You hit the ground and lose your bones, and grow new ones like screaming, like hurting. You reach out and fumble blindly, reach for a hand to pull you up.

You grab a bush, if you are it and it is in a garden.

The bush shrivels.

The bush shrivel **ed** , and it knew, for the first time, the idea of weeping. No one had taught it how to weep, but it knew that weeping was possible and knew that it should not, ever. That this was not a thing it could do.

There were many things it could not do. It sat and watched humanity grow and bloom, but every time it reached for hands or faces, reached to dry tears or taste lips – every time it – every time it –

Every time it touched a person, that person died.

Oh, don’t you know that being human is a sin? Don’t you know that reaching for something you can’t have, can’t touch—

Well.

She had wings once.

 

Now she has nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> With her straw-blonde hair, her arms hard and lean  
> She's the angel of small death and the codeine scene
> 
> Feeling more human and hooked on her flesh I  
> Lay my heart down with the rest at her feet  
> Fresh from the fields, all feeder and fertile  
> Bloody and raw, but I swear it is sweet  
> \--"Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene," Hozier
> 
> More notes:  
> Each death in this fic is based on something that happened in the show. Each death that actually _happens_ , that is. If you're curious, feel free to ask!
> 
> Did you like it? Please kudos + comment! Thanks for reading -- seriously, kudos to _you_ for making it all the way through this.


End file.
